Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, and Deshaun Watson are all having great years, and all five players are in the running for the 2019 MVP award. Right now, Mahomes has been the most efficient of the group, but the story of the 2019 season isn’t about great passing offenses…. but the fact that great passing offenses aren’t the story of the 2019 season. (As an aside, Kirk Cousins and Minnesota are quietly number two in ANY/A this season).

The best passing offense, in terms of Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, belongs to the Chiefs. So far this season, Kansas City is averaging 8.81 ANY/A, and the league as a whole is averaging 6.27 ANY/A.   So the Chiefs are averaging 2.54 ANY/A more than the average team this year.  That’s great, but what is noteworthy is that it is NOT that noteworthy this year.

The Jets passing offense is more extreme than the Chiefs passing offense.  New York is averaging an anemic 3.34 ANY/A this season, which means the Jets Relative ANY/A on offense is -2.93.  So we could say that the Jets passing offense is the most extreme this season of the 32 passing offenses.

But guess what: opponents facing the Bengals are also more extreme than Chiefs!  So far this season, Cincinnati is allowing a remarkable 8.99 ANY/A to opposing quarterbacks, which means [Insert Bengals Opponent] has been better at passing this year than Kansas City.  At -2.72 ANY/A, the Bengals pass defense is truly awful.

But wait, there’s more.  The Patriots pass defense is even more extreme than the Bengals pass defense. New England is allowing just 1.70 ANY/A this season, which is +4.57 ANY/A better than average!

The graph below shows how each team ranks in both offensive ANY/A (X-Axis) and defensive ANY/A (Y-Axis) relative to league average.  The best teams would be up and to the right, but that’s a generally empty box.  The worst teams are down and to the left, and we do have three teams there.

So while the passing attacks in Kansas City et al. are having great years, they aren’t more extreme than the Jets pass offense, the Bengals pass defense, or the Patriots pass defense.  And that is pretty unusual.  I went and calculated the best and worst passing offenses and defenses, as measured by Relative ANY/A, in each year since 1970.  Usually, extreme offenses are the biggest outliers, and in the positive direction.  In 22 of those seasons, the most extreme unit was the best passing offense; in 13 years, the worst passing offense was the most extreme.  The other 14 years were split evenly between the best and worst passing defenses. Take a look:

New England’s pass defense dominating the first half of the season, so much so that they are a good bet to finish as the most extreme passing unit this season.  That would make them just the 2nd pass defense to do so in the last 30 years, joining the 2002 Bucs.